First record of Thaumasia Perty, 1833 nursery web spider (Araneae: Pisauridae) preying upon Polistes canadensis (Linnaeus, 1758) (Hymenoptera: Vespidae) in the Neotropical region

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  First record of Thaumasia Perty, 1833 nursery web spider (Araneae: Pisauridae) preying upon Polistes canadensis (Linnaeus, 1758) (Hymenoptera: Vespidae) in the Neotropical region Abstract Thaumasia Perty, 1833 are opportunistic spiders that inhabit the Neotropical region. This study reports a spider of the genus Thaumasia preying upon Polistes canadensis (Linnaeus, 1758) in semiarid region of Brazil. A spider of the genus Thaumasia was observed moving rapidly from the fountain's water surface to capture an individual of P. canadensis . After successfully capturing the wasp, Thaumasia sp. was observed partially perched on the wall of the fountain, with the prey still on the water surface and trapped by its chelicerae. The pedipalps and chelicerae of Thaumasia sp. manipulated the head of P. canadensis , which stopped moving shortly after being captured, probably because of the action of the spider's venom. The study records a wasp in the diet of Thaumasia based on the ca...

Revision of Indian Ischnothelidae (Arachnida: Araneae) and descriptions of two new species of Indothele Coyle, 1995

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Revision of Indian Ischnothelidae (Arachnida: Araneae) and descriptions of two new species of Indothele Coyle, 1995

Abstract

Two new species of Indothele Coyle, 1995 are described from the Western Ghats of India: I. amboli Kadam, Tripathi & Sherwood sp. nov. (♂♀) from Amboli in Maharashtra, and I. silentvalley Tripathi, Kadam & Sherwood sp. nov. (♂♀) from Silent Valley National Park in Kerala. Images of the type material of I. dumicola (Pocock, 1900), the type species, are presented to complement its identification. Additionally, the male of I. mala Coyle, 1995 is described for the first time. We transfer the misplaced Ischnothele indicola Tikader, 1969 to the genus Macrothele Ausserer, 1871 (Macrothelidae), creating the new combination Macrothele indicola comb. nov. A catalogue of Indian Ischnothelidae and their currently known distribution is mapped.

Tripathi, R., Kadam, G., Sherwood, D., & Sudhikumar, A. V. (2025). Revision of Indian Ischnothelidae (Arachnida: Araneae) and descriptions of two new species of Indothele Coyle, 1995. European Journal of Taxonomy, 981(1), 189-212. https://doi.org/10.5852/ejt.2025.981.2827